carpet cleaning

[webstrive]

Hi,



I tried cleaning carpet yesterday with a scrub brush, some diluted PB APC (10:1). (First I vacumed thoroughly from central-vac.)



I follwed scrubbing by wiping up soap (with towels) and using a wet vac (ridgid vac from home depot, its 3.5 HP)



It worked ok to get most dirt out, but I could still feel some soap residue afterwards.



How do you get all the soap out, maybe my vac isn`t powerful enough? Maybe I used too much soap as well?



How much soap/APC would you go through on average sized cars with moderate amount of dirt on carpets. Better yet, how much soap would you use, for say, a 2 x 2 ft area.

[Accumulator]

I can`t say how much detergent I`d use, but it wouldn`t be too much and I`d use something that rinses out easily (carpet extractor shampoo or Charlies soap). I usually do a clear water rinse after shampooing just to avoid what you`re dealing with.



Sounds like you used too much cleaner and/or need to do a "rinse cycle". Add hot water, work it as if it were detergent, and extract that out with your wet/dry vac. Don`t use so much water that you really saturate the carpet/backing and really press down on the vac`s nozzle so you get the water out.

[Nitax]

Maybe try spraying the carpet with a spray bottle full of water and extract with a shop vac... Its easy to go overboard with soap, but if you dont get it all out it will absorb dirt and your carpets will get dirtier quicker...



Zack

[jdhutchin]

Yeah, just keep spraying water in and sucking it out until you don`t feel any more soap residue. That`s basically what a carpet extractor does, and the spraying water part is what makes it different from a wet/dry vac.